When a
sinner engages in religious exercises without faith in Christ it is idolatry to
God. Our subject is “For What Purpose Do
You Sacrifice?” That is a variation of
the next question God asks a sinner in our questions series in verse 11.

Isaiah 1: 10: Hear the word of the LORD, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto
the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah. 11: To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices
unto me? saith the LORD: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat
of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of
he goats. 12: When ye come to
appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts? 13: Bring no more vain oblations;
incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of
assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting.
14: Your new moons and your appointed
feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them.
15: And when ye spread forth
your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I
will not hear: your hands are full of blood.

Our text
begins with Isaiah saying,“Hear the word of the LORD, ye rulers of
Sodom; give ear unto the law [word] of our God, ye people of Gomorrah.”

This is
the word of the LORD.He address “the rulers”—the religious and civil leaders. And he addresses “the people.”He calls them all Sodom and
Gomorrah. Those were the cities full of the evil God hates—sodomy/homosexuality. God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah in judgment with
fire from heaven.Is the LORD
speaking to the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah? No. He is speaking to the
children of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. (Is 1: 1) So were the children of Judah guilty of homosexuality
like Sodom and Gomorrah? It was worse
than that! So was it base
immorality? Oh no.

A VERY RELIGIOUS PEOPLE

Notice the
children of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem were a very religious
people. They made a “multitude of sacrifices” unto God,
offering exactly what God told them to offer.
They did this in God’s house; God said they “tread my courts.” They
observed “new moons and Sabbaths.”They“called assemblies.”And they had the“solemn meeting.”They observed“appointed feasts.”They were continually spreading forth their hands, and making“many
prayers.”

Those
sacrifices and those sabbath days were commanded by God. That was God’s
ordained means of worship for that day.When they heard Isaiah declare God’s
question, “When ye come to appear before
me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts?” they would
have answered, “You required it God.” But did God require what they were
doing?

Notice, God
hated what the children of Judah and Jerusalem were doing. God said “I am full of the burnt offerings and I
delight not in the blood of bullocks…Bring no more vain oblations” In the
Targum these were translated “sacrifices of
robbery.” God said,“Incense is an abomination unto me; the new
moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn
meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a
trouble unto me; I am weary to bear. And when ye spread forth your hands, I
will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your
hands are full of blood.”

In Isaiah
66, God tells us even more about how God regarded their offerings.

Isaiah 66: 3:
He that killeth an ox is as if he slew a man; he that sacrificeth a
lamb, as if he cut off a dog’s neck; he that offereth an oblation, as
if he offered swine’s blood [God forbid a pigs blood be offered]; he that
burneth incense, as if he blessed an idol. Yea, they have chosen their
own ways, and their soul delighteth in their abominations. 4: I also will choose their delusions,
and will bring their fears upon them; because when I called, none did answer;
when I spake, they did not hear: but they did evil before mine eyes, and chose that
in which I delighted not.

They
offered exactly what God commanded. But
while God accepted some, God rejected most.
Why? God did not look on the
outward form but God looked on their hearts and God knew what their purpose was. God knew the motive of their heart. And God
hated it. God knew they were not doing
what God required. Therefore, concerning all their sacrifices and observances, God
hated it.

Like as those
sacrifices and observances of days was God’s means of public worship in their
day, God has ordained means of worship today.
We make a pubic confession of faith in Christ in believer’s baptism.
Then we become a member of a local church. Continually, we attend the preaching
of the gospel. We observe the Lord ’s Table.
Sacrificially, God commands us to support the ministry, needy brethren,
and missionaries with our money and time. We continue in prayer and good works.

Imagine,
if I stood up, as Isaiah did, and said, God says, “I am fullof your profession
and your baptism. I delight notin
your church membership. Your continual attendance under the gospel is an
abomination unto me. Your observance of the Lord ’s Table, I cannot, away with
it, my soul hateth. Your support of the
ministry, needy brethren and missionaries is a vain sacrifice of robbery to me.
God says when you spread forth your hands to make many prayers I will not hear
you, I will hide my eyes from you, you are a trouble to me, I am weary to bear
you and your practices.”

Brethren,
if you and I are doing what the children of Judah were doing then that is
exactly what God says. What made God say those things to the children of
Judah? What makes God say those things
to a person in our day?

THE FIRST QUESTION

Isaiah
1: 11: To
what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the LORD

The word “purpose” tells us this has to do with
their heart’s motive for offering their sacrifices and observing the sabbath
days and new moons.

In
Isaiah’s day, their purpose was to try to make satisfaction to God for their
sins and earn God’s favor by their act of sacrificing and observing days.Today, multitudes have the same
purpose. They join a church, are
baptized, attend church services, and do all manner of religious activity with
the motive of making satisfaction to God for their sins and earning God’s favor
by their religious acts.

A friend
told me he was looking for a church. I
asked why. He said, “It’s time I made up for the first half of my life not going
to church.” You would be surprised how many are performing outward religious
acts trying to make up with God.

Brethren,
as God said in Isaiah 66, if we engage in God’s ordained means of public
worship with the purpose of attempting to make satisfaction to God for our sins
“it is as if we slew a man; it is as if we blessed an idol. It is sinful man choosing his own ways
and his soul delighting in his abominations.” Religious acts without Christ
is damning! A mere outward form of religion which is not produced by Christ
motivating us in heart is vain and damning!

The
offense before God in Isaiah’s day, is the same today, they did not believe on God’s
Son. Sinners then and now are saved only through faith in Christ.

John 14: 6: Jesus saith to him, I am the way, the truth,
and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

1 John 5: 10:
He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that
believeth not God, hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record
that God gave of his Son. 11:
And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life
is in his Son.

Acts 4: 12: Neither is there salvation in any other: for
there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be
saved.

So why
did God command they bring those sacrifices? It all typified Christ. When they came
to the high priest and he burnt the offering with the sweet-smelling fat, true
believers beheld the coming Christ who “loved
us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a
sweetsmelling savour.” (Eph 5: 2)

When the
high priest burned incense the true believer watched the smoke ascend up and with
the eye of faith beheld Christ, in Spirit, making “intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.” (Rom
8: 26)

When the
true believer rested from all physical labor on the sabbath days, through faith
he beheld Christ our Sabbath sit down at God’s right hand when the work of redemption
was accomplished and he knew his true, spiritual Sabbath-rest was Christ, “For he that is entered into [Christ our]
rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his.” (Heb 4: 10)

At the appointed
feast called Passover, as the true believer ate the lamb, he beheld Christ our
Passover, the Firstborn Son of God, who died in place of his people. And as the
head of the house applied the blood to the door post of the house he was
reminded of how his Everlasting Father—Christ the Head of the house—applied his
blood to the door of his heart. So the true believer rejoiced that when God
sees Christ’s blood he passes over us without pouring out judgment because “Christ our passover is sacrificed for us” (1
Cor 5: 7)

In our
day, in God’s means of worship, the true believer beholds Christ the same as
believers of old. In believers baptism when
we behold a brother go under water and arise again the believer beholds Christ
in whom our old body of sin was crucified and buried and in whom we arose again
to newness of life.

Romans 6: 3:
Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were
baptized [unto] his death? 4: Therefore
we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up
from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in
newness of life.

Those
born again of God unite with the local church because Christ is the Head and
his church is his body and by God’s grace, “Now
ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular.” (1 Cor 12: 27)

In our
day, we do not offer those sacrifices or observe sabbath days. Today God’s
means of worship is for believers to hear Christ preached from those types, so
that by his Spirit we worship and rejoice that “ye are complete in him,…[who blotted] out the handwriting of
ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of
the way, nailing it to his cross; [we rejoice that God says] Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or
in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath
days: Which are a shadow [or type] of things to come; but the body [the
fulfillment] is of Christ.” (Col 2: 10, 14-17)

At the
Lord’s Table, true believers show forth the Lords’ death till he come remembering
Christ’s broken body and shed blood which he gave to make us the righteousness
of God in him.

As
believers give sacrificially to help one another, and as we promote the gospel
that others may hear, we behold “the
grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he
became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich.” (2 Cor 8: 9)

We do not
much notice our own works. But when we behold
a fellow believer do a good work “we
thank God who works his will in his people to do that which is well-pleasing in
his sight through Jesus Christ our Lord and we give him all the glory.” (Heb
13: 21)

So today,
the same as then, there were means that God ordained. But believers only use
the means to worship Christ. We do not worship the means or expect to be saved
by the means.

In the
tabernacle the floor was made of silver from the redemption money taken up when
they redeemed their firstborn. So when
the priests were washed it was a picture of Christ washing us in his blood and
making us priests unto God. Then when
they entered the tabernacle, all their service was performed on that foundation
of redemption silver. It pictured
believers serving God on the foundation of Christ our Redemption already accomplished.
We add nothing to the finished work of Christ!

THE SECOND QUESTION

Isaiah
1: 12: When
ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my
courts?

Then and
now vainly religious men would answer this question, saying, “God, you required
we come to you by this means.” But God is asking “Who hath required satisfaction be made at your hand in my courts?” God never said satisfaction could be
made by a sinner’s hand offering sacrifices.

Hebrews 10:1: For the law having a shadow of good things
to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices
which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect…4:
For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take
away sins.

The same
is true in our day. Satisfaction to God is not made by our will or by our works:
not by our decision for Christ, not by being baptize or going to church. Satisfaction
to God’s broken law is made one way—by God’s will fulfilled by Christ for those
God sanctified in him before the world was made.

Hebrews 10: 5: Wherefore when [Christ] cometh into the world, he saith,
Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me: 6: In burnt offerings and sacrifices
for sin thou hast had no pleasure. [no satisfaction] 7: Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is
written of me,) to do thy will, O God…9…He
taketh away the first [covenant of works], that he may establish the second
[everlasting covenant of grace.] 10:
By the which will, [by God’s will], we are sanctified through the offering of
the body of Jesus Christ once for all. [satisfaction is by God’s will, fulfilled
by Christ’s works, not by our will and our works] 11: And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering
oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins: 12: But this man, after he had offered
one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; 13: From henceforth expecting till his
enemies be made his footstool. 14:
For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.

God began
in our text by calling the children of Judah Sodom and Gomorrah. That tells us
that physical sodomy—homosexuality—is symbolic of sinners attempting to make
satisfaction to God themselves by their will and their works. How so? A man and
a man cannot produce fruit/children. In
verse 10 you have “the rulers and the
people” (men with men) which could never produce the fruit of satisfaction
to God.

It is
interesting we come to this passage and God laid this message on my heart the
day after Billy Graham died. He was the prominent preacher in the past 100
years preaching that satisfaction is made by the sinner’s will making himself
be born again and accepting Jesus as his personal savior.” He also taught that
believers are made progressively holier by a co-effort between God and their
law-keeping. Such preaching has resulted in a self-righteous nation which God
has turned over to physical sodomy in judgment due to preachers preaching
salvation by the will and works of sinners. That’s right, the legalization of physical
sodomy in our day is God’s judgment. The fault lies squarely on the shoulder of
will-works preachers just as it did in our passage.

Everyone receiving
this please understand: God never required any sinner to even attempt to make
satisfaction for our sins. Christ alone made satisfaction to God and has
perfected forever all them that God sanctified in him.

FOR THE WILL-WORKER

Isaiah 1: 16: Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings
from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; 17: Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge
the fatherless, plead for the widow. 18:
Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as
scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they
shall be as wool.

If a
sinner is trying to save himself by his will and his works what does God
command him to do? God says, “Wash you,
make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease
to do evil.”

This is
faith in Christ and repentance from the evil of trying to save yourself by your
will and your works. Those who are washed
in regeneration in the blood of Christ by the Holy Spirit shall obey this
command by believing on Christ. By God’s irresistible grace, they will put away
the evil of attempting to make satisfaction by their will and their works. And Christ shall wash them white as snow, “Come now, and let us reason together, saith
the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow;
though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.”

The second
thing God commands is love toward brethren and toward all men—“Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve
the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.” Along with faith in Christ, the Spirit of
God gives a heart of love in which Christ teaches us to do what is righteous to
our brethren and to all men. We love our brethren and our friends, first and
foremost, by bringing our friends with us to hear the gospel of Christ. By Christ our “judgment” is settled; by Christ sinners are “relieved from the oppression” of law and legal preachers; by Christ
the helpless sinner like “the fatherless
and widow” are defended in providence in justice. Also, we love by doing these things toward
our brethren and all men.

This is what
God requires, this is the heart of true worshippers, to believe on Christ who
established the law for his people and to love one another. Both are done as we
are constrained or motivated by the love of Christ for us. Both are the gift of
God, both are worked in us by the Spirit of Christ and both fulfill the purpose
of the believer’s heart. “For what purpose” do we do these things? To give Christ all the glory!